We traveled quite a bit while we were in Europe. Living near Nice puts one close to many countries with architectural relics, works of art, and generally many areas very appealing for parents with an affinity for travel and a mind to expose their children to things they would only otherwise read about in books.
One such excursion took us south down the Italian peninsula to the little town of Sorrento, across the bay from the city of Naples, and very close to the Isle of Capri. Naples has a low shore, but as the coast curves around the bay, the edge of the land rises up into sheer cliffs dozens of feet off the surface of the water and rocky, the breaking edge of the earth covered by windswept trees and grasses farther up the hill from the water. Sorrento is perched on the edge of a cliff, a town assailed by tourists, to be sure, but effective in holding off most of the shameless pandering that other towns have succumbed to.
We stayed in a hotel situated on the edge, in other words, one of the faces of the building melded into the cliff, and from a distance on the water only balconies and windows distinguished the hotel from the surface of cliff below it. Quays and docks floated below, just behind a breakwater to keep the waves from overturning the small population of dinghies and assorted craft. We were on the second or third floor in the hotel, with two rooms, one facing inland, towards the town, and one with the most unabashedly beautiful of all views over the bay, towards Naples on the right, mount Vesuvius peering above the layer of smog that blanketed the city across the bay, and the Mediterranean on the left, the coastline winding away and out of sight. From the balcony one could see around the edge of the hotel, up the hill above the town.
During the day the view was of a nature that would make every beautiful chord of music well up within you and you approached the window, but at night, at night… The rest of my family was occupied in the other hotel room; I was alone, reading by the lamplight. I felt the breeze on my bare feet, and turned around to see the long white curtains, hung from the high doors, brush outward from the base, from the wind’s breath. I bookmarked my novel and stepped through the white sheets onto the balcony, and my hands curled around the painted wrought iron of the railing as I looked. The lights from Naples, across the bay, quivered through the invisible smog and lingering heat of the day, and the moon above shone an insubstantial path on the water far below. I could smell the faint salt, and hear the broken waves lapping against the hulls moored to the networks of quays. The breeze brushed through my hair again and again as I stood, my fingers working their way through the intricacies of the railing. I turned around to look up the hill, and though the bright moon illuminated branches here and there, small lights dotted the land as it curved both ways, south out of sight to my left, and around towards the city on my right.
The spectacle was complete, a momentary condensation, a portrait of the ancient world we lived in for many years. I admire natural beauty as well, but that time was unique, with the air, and the fabric of the curtains, and the sensations playing around the fingertips of my mind. I guard memories like that and nurture them with care, because they become me, and are all I really have from then, “Moments in time, like tears in the rain.”